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In a few years, the rubber-stripped blades that have kept rain, snow and sleet off car windshields for nearly a century may become a thing of the past.

At least that appears to be the objective of a new ultrasound technology being developed by the McLaren Group, Britain's most advanced automobile company and a leading designer of Formula 1 supercars.

Frank Stephenson, the chief designer at the Woking, U.K.-based company, told the Sunday Times that McLaren is adapting technology pioneered for fighter jets as an alternative to the traditional windshield wiper, which was invented by Mary Anderson in 1903.

The high-frequency sound waves envelop the windshield like a force field, repelling water, insects and anything else that gets in its way.

The U.S. Navy has used similar electromagnetic envelopes to prevent barnacles from growing on the hull of their ships.